Nokia says it wants to sell 150 million Symbian phones before the venerable OS is finally shunted off to the knacker's yard, and it unveiled two new models today that the Finns hope will bring that target nearer. Both feature a new "Anna" revision to Symbian OS.
One model, a Blackberry-like business design, is quite outstanding …

Just get an Xperia Mini Pro

Just get an Xperia Mini Pro with no operator customisation and upgrade it to 2.1. I recently replaced an N95 in my household with one of these (upgraded it to 2.1 on the first day) and could compare it head to head to my E71 as well as a few of the newer phones on the market.

The difference is so much not in Nokia/Symbian favour it is not even funny. It also costs less. My only complain - battery life could be better. This should get better by year end once it goes to Android 2.2 or later which Sony recently promised (after initially saying that 2.1 is end-of-the-road).

The only reason I am still keeping my E71 in use is because it isn't fully broken yet. Once it is dead, it is dead.

While at it, just put the N series Gothic joke next to an Arc or iPhone 4 and compare. Weep. Rinse. Repeat.

OMG OMG OMG :)

I have been struggling to find something to upgrade my e71. Android doesn't cut it when it comes to syncing with outlook or battery time. Blackberry is flaky and requires a data plan, my work SIM does not have. iPhone is a straight jacket of restriction just like WM7 is tied into zune. I need a keyboard, I need total and simple and bluetooth sync to outlook, I need the LONG battery times.. Nokia wins... just as it dies..

Android does cut it

You just have to sync to Google first. Over whatever you want, carrier pigeons not withstanding (with or without QoS). Works with outlook, works with entourage and mostly works with thunderbird.

That IMO is done on purpose so that we all get gmail and end up tied up into google services one way or the other.

Funnily enough it works a treat with Nokia too.

Just point Nokia Mail For Exchange (yes, I am not joking) to m.google.com, log in with gmail username, password, and google for the domain (pre-3.0 mfe versions need no domain). Tell it not to sync tasks for MFE 3.x, 2.x works fine for all categories. Voila - you have calendar and everything. Shared across Outlook, Symbian, Mozilla, Android, whatever.

I do not let it anywhere near my mail. I have however suffered more than enough with calendaring sync in the past so I have decided to accept this particular cloud service for my personal stuff (grudgingly and grinding my teeth).

Very true, Wize ...

If I had waited another two months I wouldn't have bought my Nokia 5230 last year. I have always liked Nokia phones, and to be honest this one works well as a basic mobile phone that I can't accidentally override the keylock on(!). However, the OS is just awful - far too many button presses to do things, and a bit flaky on some of the sensors. To make this worse, I am finding that there are lots of useful apps for Android (I wouldn't have anything of Apple's, no matter what) that no-one is developing/porting to this hideous OS I'm now stuck with for the foreseeable future.

Whether I'll go with Nokia once it wholeheartedly jumps into bed with Windows I just don't know - depends on the apps and the usability, but I do know that if my 5230 needed replacing due to loss or damage, it wouldn't be a Nokia I'd be getting at this point.

Re: WTF?

What an advertisement.

hmmm

I may actually consider this E6 and get a slabette for around the house, could tide me over from a fading E71 until Android battery life is more phone like. No rush though, 3 will give me plenty of time to weigh the options...

Android/Outlook sync not bad via google calendar

Over the years I too had got used to Nokia PC Suite and bluetooth for Outlook sync. I never synced my mail though only calendar. With Android you still can if you don't mind syncing Outlook with Google Calendar then Google Calendar with Android. Does actually work quite well, with the bonus that even if you are not near your PC things still happen.

Re: Too little, too late....

Good for you. Many companies don't get any pennies from me either - does that mean I should post on every article about them, saying "Too little, too late...."?

I like Nokia phones. And judging how they're the number one phone and smartphone company, and have been for years - despite all the free hype going to Apple whilst Nokia are almost entirely ignored in the media - I guess I'm far from alone.

Well...

...Nokia *phones* can be quite good. They are phones. They make calls. They have a battery life that lasts for longer than the length of a gnat's fart. They're cheap, and they work. Every functionality you could want from a *phone*.

Nokia *smartphones* on the other hand... ew. Either an operating system that they have said is getting canned so there's really no point buying if you want to buy apps a year down the line, or an operating system made by Microsoft.

stick that head in the sand

Yep Nokia's CEO burning platform metaphor was all wrong. The market is also wrong for devaluing Nokia by %25 in the last few months. According to you Meego is still the way of the future and Nokia market share will stay put. Lol got to love Eurocentric protectionists that also think the Eurofighter was a bargain.

More from Nokia?

Kind of highlights Nokia's problems -- too many handsets keep getting released with too little to set them all apart. Who is going to keep investing in devices where the maker has already said the OS is going to be crapped out the window? (pardon the pun).

re dead OS walking

The reason why you and the other few posters saying the same thing, are likely wrong, is you're sophisticates. The average punter is not, and they'll only notice the severe app-dearth some way into ownership (which is only supposed to be an 18-24 month experience - yet Nokias can outlive this by years, to their credit). Yet Nokia can even offset the app-dearth problem - by reducing the price of those apps to zero, as with Nokia Maps satnav (which is pretty good).

The problem only arises, where one compares the OS and app environment, with an iPhone. A large proportion of those problems can be ameliorated by careful targeting of core apps.

And the unanswerable problem is simply that which arises from the question "where is my singing-dancing-hip app store that I can spend lots of time on?" Which is a bit sick in a way.

retina display!

According to these numbers the E6 has the same dot pitch as the iPhone 4.

It'll need all them pixels to make the new font look good, because although I hate the old one, at least it is legible all squeezed up. The new font is nice, but I don't know if it will look right as a UI font, especially on small device.

Pissing

Crudely.. rivals are pissing all over Nokia with their dual-core devices with much, much higher resolution screens and overall better experience. OK, the E6 is possibly a better messaging device than a BlackBerry.. but the X7 just looks out of place compared to similarly priced rivals like the HTC Desire S.

The X7 is a device that badly needs to be replaced with something more powerful running Windows Phone 7, but the E6 is perhaps a better indication of what Symbian can do and perhaps Nokia need to stick with it for this type of smartphone..

sync between android and outlook

syncing between android and microsoft exchange client works like a charm on my wifes milestone.

if that works, there's little reason to sync between outlook and the phone over bluetooth.

having said that, i have used bluetooth to sync with outlook, but not any more. using the exchange client is just a better way of doing it. the data usage is very reasonable, works with wifi so that office and home are covered, and it's fast even over normal gprs/edge connections. even company directory lookup works like a charm for both android and my e71.

given how well opensync works with my e71 and evolution for the calendar and contacts over bluetooth, i'd say it's just a matter of time before syncing an android phone to a pc using bluetooth becomes run of the mill.

Why do I keep reading "Sybian"?

On screen...

Maemo and N900 story

The feeling of being shafted by Nokia when they announced that they were going with Meego when I got a N900 still sticks in my mind. After a little while, Meego had a little promise as it looked like Nokia were doing things with it but really, that went no where and N900 users once again were left with a hollow feeling yet again. Now, with WP7, all hope is gone. A bit of vision and they could have turned Maemo into the premier smart-phone OS. It was so impressive when it came out and was years ahead of everyone else. Alas ..

Still, S60 on my E66 can still manage without a charge for 3 days with WIFI and 3G and a bit of talk. These days that's pretty good when compared to my N900 and Nexus 1 android. WIFI and 3G off, I can get a week. For someone who wants a phone with better battery life and just some basic smart phone smarts, S60 could fill that gap nicely.

X7

I've had a go on the X7 and loved it. It feels nice and weighty in your hand, the screen in massive and if it is half as good as the N8 I'll be making it my next phone. Probably gonna get a load of grief for saying this but, just as Nokia seemed to be on the right track they seem to be giving up.